Chris Covell ~ CMC80s

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CMC80s.NES
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.....aaaaaaaAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW!!!!! Nineteen-Eighty-Five! The number...
Another Summer. GET DOWN! Sound of the funky plumber. Nintendo hittin'
your heart 'cause I know you got soul. BROTHERS AND SISTERS! We gather
here today to celebrate a magical fifteen years in our lives. Who'd have
thought that a portly man in overalls could have brought such joy to our
lives? Who'd have thought that Nintendo's NES, released in 1985, would
still be played by thousands of people around the world, fifteen years
later? Yes, folks it's the year 2000, and game systems have come and
gone, but for some of us, nothing beats the old Nintendo. We are the
madmen of the gaming world!!!! Welcome to a new demo on the NES called
CMC'80s. This demo was released on June 14, 2000. It is dedicated to all
the gaming freaks who still have a dirty grey box connected to their
television sets and who still play their old favourites every week. Why
on Earth do we still play archaic games on a system that's over fifteen
years old? Why play these 8-bit games when there are 64-bit masterpieces
all around? :-) Well, some people don't understand. But, if you're like
me, you grew up playing the NES. Or maybe it was the Commodore-64. Or
maybe the ZX Spectrum. Or... <sigh> All right, you Master System people
can join in the nostalgia, too. But you'll have to stand at the back.

Anyways, if you're like me, you grew up in the 1980s. It was a time of
great wonderment for me. When the NES came out in North America, I was
just.... um, seven years old, but even then I knew that the new Nintendo
system would be something special. It played Super Mario Brothers just
like in the arcade!!!! :-D The day that my brother and I spent our
savings on the NES was a special one, and I still remember it. We played
Mario until way past our bedtimes. It was quite simply the most fun
system that we had ever played. It still wins that award today, in my
eyes.

Christmases were a great time, too.

I remember seeing the Legend of Zelda for the first time at a friend's
house. It looked amazing, with that little elfin creature switching
between creepy rooms in the underworld. I knew that I had to have it
under my Christmas tree that year. Lo and behold, it did arrive as
wished for, and I played it for months afterward. My brother and I would
spend long afternoons trying to find its secrets, trying to solve the
puzzles, trying to beat the underworld bosses, trying to rescue Zelda.
The game had primitive graphics by today's standards, but a huge part of
the attraction to Zelda was the fact that we had to use our imaginations
for the enemies, characters, and story, and that made it all the more
engaging.

But that was a long time ago, and we are now in the wasteland of Y2K
dreams. Sigh. I wish I could go back to that time of innocence and
beauty, of sunny days and blue skies. My heavy heart is ready to burst!

Chris....
Hey!
Wake up!
You've done it.
You're back in the '80s!
Back in 1989.
You're playing Mega Man 2 on your NES.
Your friends are sitting beside you.
You're starting to notice girls.
"Love in an Elevator" is playing on the radio.
Look outside!
The sky is a deep blue.
The grass is clean and the air is fresh.
Everything is fine with the world.

Well, I guess that anything is possible if you wish for it hard enough.
You can close your eyes and grit your teeth and strain all your muscles
in wishing, and some things never come.

Happiness is probably the thing most often wished for by people, and
nostalgia is a heavy narcotic of wishing. It is a double-edged sword, a
Chinese finger trap. You bask in the warm glow of yesteryear, warming
the spirit; yet at the same time you are clawing away at your heart, for
those days of yesteryear will never come again.

Such is the real case for us Nintendo-freaks. If you've read this far,
then you are truly one like me. We all know the real reason why we
continue holding on to a dinosaur.

The NES is an eight-bit-sized opening into our past, from which we can
clutch memories, sights, sounds, smells, sensations, and emotions
triggered by our playing Nintendo games.

I can play Mega Man 2 and instantly be transported back to the Summer
days when I would rent the game with my best friends and play it all day
long.

I can play Journey to Silius and be carried away to those dark winter
nights of 1990 when I would walk several kilometres to the video store
to rent the game, my footsteps crunching in the reflective snow that
illuminates the nighttime sky.

I can play Zelda and be stolen back even farther into the past with
remembrances of sitting in a doctor's waiting room on Boxing Day,
reading through the golden manual of a new gem of a game. I can do this
and I DO do this, even though it is indulgence in one's own
irretrievable past.

It is more important to create new memories in the present, be they good
or bad.

If you ever have the choice between playing games and doing something
worthwhile with somebody worthwhile, then for Christ's sake DON'T JUST
SIT THERE PLAYING VIDEOGAMES!!!! Nowadays, it seems that I am always
looking into the past, and not just to my lifetime.

I've been thinking about all past eras, and how amazing our human need
for artistic expression is.

People have been creating art since time immemorial.

The one true purpose of art is to make emotional connections with our
fellow humans, to attempt to express the unexpressible, to send messages
into the future telling our descendants how our lives were filled with
constantly alternating joy and sorrow, just as their lives will be.

Now I am doing my part to try to make some art to tell anybody who will
listen that I have felt joy and sorrow and have tried to live through
all of it.

But alas, the two main hurdles for all humans will befall me too:

I cannot reach everybody on earth with my message.  My message will be
forgotten, will disintegrate, will be destroyed by the unstoppable
eroder, Time.

At the very least, I can take comfort in knowing that at some point in
time, some atoms in the world, some bits of electricity, were configured
in a manner, however fleeting, that spelt out my name.

Chris Covell, 2000 A.D.


This demo was created by me, Chris C., over the course of a few
months, on my trusty Amiga 1200.

I didn't spend a long time on it; I was just very busy with school and
work during the preceding months. All graphics and code were done by me,
except for some font outlines, of course.

Since I'm sadly not a musician, the music in this demo is from the game
"Magician", by Taxan in 1990. It is absolutely fantastic!

Change the music by pressing A to advance and B to retreat songs.

I had wanted to capture the feeling of the '80s in a demo, by making a
C-64-style intro, and making a nice glam '80s CMC logo. I think it looks
rather nice. Hey, I even got an LED display in there, too! But I guess
the only way to feel the '80s is to remember it yourself. Television,
music, movies, and games from that era go a long way in bringing back
the feelings from those times, however. If you liked this demo, e-mail
me at ccovell@direct.ca, and be sure to visit my webpage, fleeting
though it may also be, at http://mypage.direct.ca/c/ccovell or
http://www.zyx.com/ccovell I greatly appreciate all your help and love
over the years. Take care, and be sure to wake up from your dreams.


"These are rocks I picked up along the Seine, picked up along the
Hudson.  The rocks commemorate that I was there and that I was alive."
- William Saroyan.

"Heaven is making girls laugh."
- Anonymous boy from a South American Village.
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ReadmeCMC80s.TXT
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This is an NES demo that I made to show off some of the NES' features.
It doesn't do too much that resembles an actual game, but it should give
you an idea of what the NES can do technically.  Besides, I'm proud of
what I did, since I'm an amateur at NES (and 6502) programming.

This demo is called "CMC'80s", and it pays tribute to the NES as well
as the decade that gave birth to Nintendo's great little system.  I
tried to emulate the visual style of demos from the C-64 era.

Technically, this demo _really_ gives the NES a workout.  Therefore, only
a real NES runs this demo completely correctly.  Some emulators that come
close, but not perfect, are LoopyNES and BioNES on the PC, and DarkNESs on
the Amiga.  Mac emulation has not been tested, but should be comparable.

If you are an emulator author, and want to emulate this demo correctly, you
should note that this demo utilizes of the NES:

 · "Colour Emphasis" bits.
 · Mid-HBlank PPU writing.
 · Sprite 0 hit detection.
 · Sprite / Background priority.
 · Split-screen scrolling.
 · Cycle-accurate scanline timing.

Please E-Mail me if you like this demo.  Enjoy!

Chris Covell
ccovell@direct.ca
http://mypage.direct.ca/c/ccovell/
http://www.zyx.com/ccovell
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